Dedication: For my friend, Zhi'rev. I'm happy when you request stories, because it helps me strive to do my best work. I hope you like it.
To all other readers: you are awesome! Thanks so much for your support.
To Be Human
"Keptain, we've officially reached the farthest recorded point in the galaxy of any Starfleet wessel," Ensign Chekov says evenly. Inwardly, he is proud to be part of such an historic mission with the best professionals in the Fleet. But there is no way he is about to say so. Sentimentality can wait. He is on duty.
Captain Kirk, on the other hand, is not timid about voicing his feelings to the entire bridge crew. "Then this is a moment that calls for celebration - Wait a minute, Mr. Chekov, haven't we breached the barrier of the Milky Way Galaxy before?"
"Three times, sir," Chekov answers, eyes fixed on the viewscreen.
"And we're not close to the galaxy's edge now, correct?"
"Zat is correct, Keptain."
"Then how is it that we've traveled farther than ever before?" Kirk knows the answer, but he wants to keep the young Ensign on his toes. He knows Chekov is a bright officer. Kirk just wants to remind himself of the acute mental prowess of even the youngest officers aboard the Starship Enterprise.
"You see, the galaxy's shape is fluid. It is wider in some areas than in others. And Earth is not at the center of the galaxy, of course. So the distance from Starfleet Headquarters to the farthest point we traveled out of the galaxy is actually less than the distance from Earth to our current position." Chekov knows this is a test. And he is very happy to oblige his Captain. He has passed.
"Thank you for that explana –" Kirk is interrupted mid-sentence by Lieutenant Sulu.
"Captain, we are decreasing in speed rapidly," Sulu reports. "Warp three, sir. Warp two, warp one. Moving into sublight speed, sir."
Suddenly, two figures are visible on the ship's front viewscreen. They appear to be large blobs of color, intertwining with each other, but separate. One is bright red, like the color of Vulcan's sky on a hot, sandy morning. The other being – if one can call it that – is a vibrant shade of blue, like the pristine color of one of the hidden corners of Earth's oceans. Both of the globules have flecks of white and black light bouncing through their masses.
The sight is truly breathtaking; better than Earth's aurora borealis; the famous Northern Lights, as they are called. These figures look like miniature nebulas dancing with each other.
If these two unknown substances hadn't affected their ship, then Captain Kirk is sure he could stare at their dance for hours. The colors are a welcome change to his tired eyes, used to gazing upon endless black.
"These…things… appear to have stopped us," Kirk manages.
"Engines are still functioning normally, Cap'n," Scotty assures, from the engineering station. "Weapons are ready at your command. Strange, the warp drive hasn't been damaged, sir."
"But I can't move the ship, sir. Should I fire the photon torpedoes?" Sulu asks.
Meanwhile, Spock is busy at his science station analyzing the sensor readings. "Captain, I would advise you to hold your fire. These beings are alive. But they do not seem to be directing hostility toward our ship. Their life appears to be based in helium gas. But censors indicate they are composed of hundreds of other gases, some unidentifiable by our known periodic table."
Captain Kirk barely has time to think with all of this information being thrown at him. But he is used to it. He craves pressure, he thrives on it. This is, after all, why he is the youngest starship captain in the fleet.
"Thank you, Mr. Spock. A life form…based in helium? Stand by Mr. Sulu, Mr. Scott. Hold your fire. Lieutentant Uhura, can you broadcast a universal signal of peace?" he directed.
Just then, the turbolift door opens and Dr. McCoy walks onto the bridge. He has come to remind Jim that he missed his weekly physical, and to get to sickbay at once. However, when he looks up and sees the two creatures, he is stopped in his tracks. "What the blazes –" he starts, but is too overwhelmed by the transfixing sight.
Uhura turns from her dashboard. "Yes, I have done so, Captain. These beings are communicating in some way; not to us, but to each other. I'm picking up frequencies quite strong. If they were human, I would label their interaction as loud and aggressive." She pounds buttons furiously and inputs codes orally into the computer. "If I can just find some way to translate what they are saying, amplify it…" She keeps working at it. A few moments later, she cries out "I've got it!" Pressing one final button, the sound came through to the Enterprise – in English.
"You are a complete fool!" booms a low, echoing voice. It is presumably coming from one of the nebula-like creatures. But they are moving so quickly that it is impossible to tell if blue or red is speaking.
"The Earth should be destroyed!" shouts a meek voice; what a mouse might sound like if it could talk.
"Humans may have a dark past, but they have and will overcome it." The powerful voice counters.
"Never! Have you seen what they have done to each other? They are of no use. None! You still don't believe me? I'll show you!" The mousey voice yells with all its might.
Spock is lying on dirt. Dusty, fine, dirt that covers his face, nose, and mouth. He coughs, but doesn't mind the dirt. It reminds him of Vulcan and he misses his home. He misses lying in the cool dirt after a hot day, staring at the stars and planets. The last thing he remembers is dreaming about some type of helium-based life form. Fascinating, he thinks, could such a creature exist?
Leonard McCoy is claustrophobic. He immediately senses that he is being suffocated by an enclosed space. He has just woken from a heavy sleep, but he doesn't want to open his eyes. The colors of the beings in his dream were beautiful and mesmerizing. Blue topaz and ruby, he thinks, the same colors as his wife's engagement ring.
But the pleasure of the dream had passed for McCoy. He is fully awake now, becoming more and more aware of his surroundings. He feels something jabbing into his leg, and reaches into his pocket. It is a small universal translator. Funny, he doesn't remember seeing one of these in a long while. He needs to get up and stretch badly. But he decides to stretch before he gets up. He raises his arms to either side of him, but hits something on both sides. His eyes immediately dart open. Two inches above his nose is a wooden platform filled with hay, which seems to hold five humanoid bodies. His left arm has hit a solid wall and his right arm has hit: what? He turns his head carefully. Spock!
At the sudden impact of Dr. McCoy's arm, Spock opens his eyes. A choking stench invades his nostrils. He is reminded of a dead sehlat he once encountered walking in the wilderness, but he is a long way from Vulcan.
They look at each other. "Spock, what in the world happened? Move over and let's get out of here!" McCoy spits between clenched teeth, a little louder than a whisper.
Heeled boots stomp on the dusty concrete floor. Someone is coming; yelling in a coarse, hard language. McCoy switches on his universal translator. "Get up! Put your shoes on, make your beds! Must be perfect or you don't leave! You don't eat!" All of the still bodies above Spock and McCoy got up and began their ordered task. The room is abuzz with movement, but it feels as dead as the stone walls.
Spock inches out from under the bunk. McCoy follows, thankful to finally be standing up. Soon, he is not thankful. They see humans. Lots and lots of humans, who are so emaciated that they don't appear human at all. McCoy burns to treat them all, get them warm, and get them fed. The man who barked out the orders looks exactly like the prisoners, but wears a warm fur coat. He goes over to a man who cannot find his shoes and beats him. McCoy instinctively reaches for his phaser, but finds he is not dressed in a Starfleet uniform and carries no weapon. His and Spock's uniforms match the striped, thin fabric of the others'.
Since they slept on the floor, Spock and McCoy don't have to make beds. Spock grabs McCoy's arm and pulls him out of the building. The two slip out unnoticed, but speak in hushed tones.
"Spock, what are you doing? Did you see the same thing I saw? I thought you would want to help those people!" McCoy hisses. The outside temperature is frigid and he can see the fog of his breath curl into the air and disappear.
"I believe I know where we are, Doctor," Spock replies, unnerved. "Likey Poland, Earth, circa the years 1940 to 1944."
Suddenly it hits McCoy. Of course. He should have known. But he never liked to study that part of Earth's history. He couldn't bear it.
"Spock, what happened to the Enterprise? How did we get here? I certainly was not part of any landing party." McCoy feigns a stroke of humor to mask his fear.
"I do not know, Doctor, but perhaps our sudden arrival here can be traced back to those helium-based life forms." Spock tries to reason.
"Is this real history, or are we imagining it?" McCoy asks.
"There's no way to tell; we possess no tricorders or comparable instruments. But we best not upset anything in the event that we might alter the past."
They cannot talk any longer, for the group of inmates file out of the stable-barracks. They get in line and are lead over to tables. There is talk of "breakfast." The inmates hand in tin plates and receive a piece of bread and a hot drink. Sometimes the soldiers in control spill the drink or make the prisoners fall. Spock and McCoy don't have tin trays so they are forced along without food.
The group is moved along into a flat, open square, filled with a dusty covering. All of the prisoners are arranged in perfect rows. The officials begin to count their inmates. Suddenly, McCoy sees a familiar face diagonal to him in the crowd. Jim is here. Behind him is Sulu. A little to the left is Scotty, then Chekov. Everyone who was on the Bridge is here. McCoy's confidence increases slightly, then plummets to his feet. Everyone is here except for one person: Where is Lieutenant Uhura? He wants to elbow Spock and point, or run through the crowd to get to his shipmates. But he knows this will get him killed and will likely cause the unnecessary deaths of many others. He stifles a sardonic laugh. Is there such a thing as a necessary death?
It is now the middle of the day. The sun is bright, but the air is still cold. McCoy and Spock have been moving bags of sand all morning. They are not in Kirk's group, but they can only hope Kirk and the rest of the crew are all right.
McCoy played sports as a teenager and young adult, in the hot Georgia sun. He loved football and running. These required him to spend time weight training in the gym. He ran long distances and even won a few awards. However, at nearly fifty years old, the hard, unceasing labor is a struggle for him. He cannot imagine what his starving, sickly peers are going through. Every chance he gets; he offers them a smile or a whispered word of encouragement.
"You're quite strong, there, my friend," McCoy whispers to the man in front of him.
The other man talks back. McCoy knows he could be flogged for this. "Are you new around here?" the man says. "No talking. See those men in the fur coats with triangles on their sleeves? We call them kapos. They are political prisoners, not Jews, like us, but they are being offered rewards to turn against us."
McCoy cannot manage a response to what he just heard. Instead, he asks, "What is your name?"
"Viktor," he whispered, and turned away from McCoy. The kapo was coming towards them.
"I'm McCoy. Good to know you Viktor." But in reality it is not good to know Viktor. It is not good to know that all of this suffering really existed. He had studied it as a schoolboy, but to actually live it is unthinkable! If McCoy dares to feel self-pity because he has done nothing to deserve this brutality, he reminds himself that the prisoners have done nothing wrong either.
Spock is accustomed to hard labor; young Vulcans undergo physical training to enhance their already-superior composition. But no challenge that his Vulcan teachers ever gave him compares to this. Still, he is able to manage it twice as well as most of the humans. When the kapos aren't looking, Spock does the weaker humans' portion of the work so they can have a rest without getting beaten closer and closer to death. The day drags by like this and by the end, Spock is tired. He won't admit it, but his hands and back hurt in muscles he didn't know he had.
McCoy watches Spock selflessly lug the twice his share of sandbags and stones. If it weren't Spock, he could swear that he heard a groan of pain escape his lips.
The sun is almost setting and the group is still laboring. Spock's keen sense of hearing does not pick up the sound of any boots drawing near, so he picks up a rock of a prisoner about to collapse, and hauls it to the wheelbarrow. Just then, a soldier appears – an officer, seemingly out of thin air. He clubs Spock to the ground and the Vulcan does not make a sound. At this, the kapo beats him harder for not giving the reaction he wanted.
"Are you mute, too, ears!" he cries, and finally gives up. Spock's ears are not an unusual sight to this man or the others. They just deem him the result of a medical "experiment," like so many others.
With no phasers and no chance to break away, the Doctor and the Vulcan spend the rest of the backbreaking day in silence.
Night has fallen over the unnamed labor camp. Spock and McCoy are nowhere closer to escaping this nightmare, but at least they can talk now. The guards have gone to their warm beds, in a building far away from here.
McCoy and Spock are back underneath the concrete bed with the hay mattress.
"Do you think we should try to sneak out?" McCoy offers, turning on his side to face Spock. This time Spock is on the side of the wall, at McCoy's request.
"And where would we go, Doctor?" asks Spock, in a tone almost too low for words. He is lying on his back, templed fingers resting on his chest.
"To find Jim! And the crew. I saw them at roll call this morning, well, all except Lieutenant Uhura…"
"I suggest we wake early tomorrow, before anyone arrives, then go to find Jim. I know which building he went into, along with Commander Scott and -"
Spock silences at the sound of shuffling feet. Someone is walking towards them. A head pops underneath the bed, and McCoy slowly turns around. It is Viktor.
"I did not see you and your friend receive dinner. I brought you some soup." He hands McCoy a tin mug. It is half full of a thin brown liquid. McCoy does not know if he will drink it, but then he looks into Viktor's gleaming grey eyes. How can they still be gleaming in the face of such atrocity?
McCoy knows that mugs are collected at the end of each day. Viktor risked a beating – possibly his life – to bring him this. He takes a small sip. It tastes of lukewarm death. He won't give it to Spock.
"Viktor, thank you. This may sound crazy, but may I ask where we are?" McCoy whispers.
Viktor's eyes droop. He looks on McCoy with pity. How can he feel pity for another when the bones jut out from his face and neck? "Did they knock you out to bring you here?" he says. "You are at Auschwitz-Birkenau."
McCoy's throat catches. It's a good thing Spock decides to speak because he can't. "Viktor, how old are you?" Spock asks evenly. His voice is so monotone that it hardly registers as a question.
"Twenty-five, mister." McCoy gasps. Viktor is twenty-five? He looks sixty. His face is drained of all flesh and his ribs are blatantly visible.
"Ahh, yes, and thank you for the soup. It was most delicious," Spock adds. Viktor stifles a laugh as he tiptoes back to his bunk, squished in with five other men.
McCoy nudges Spock. "I don't believe it. You actually made a joke? At a time like this?"
"It worked," Spock stated simply.
"What do you mean?"
"He smiled."
The day is getting stranger and stranger for McCoy. "Gee, Spock, I didn't know you cared," he says sarcastically.
At the commonplace remark, some internal barrier breaks inside Spock: a barrier between his thoughts and his actions, between control and chaos.
"I've read about this point in Earth's history. I know how many were killed, their names, the conditions, the places, the times. I can tell you the data. But never have I so completely understood the experience of another as today. This has been…stronger than any mind meld." His voice cracks, something Spock's voice never does. "This is why Vulcan ridded itself of emotion, thirst for power."
McCoy does not know why Spock got all philosophical on him all of a sudden. But he does not want to lay there in silence. So he replies, "Spock, emotion does not do this." McCoy gestures his hands around as much as he can in the cramped space. "People do this. We are flawed. There is clearly evil present here. But in the worst of times, the human spirit can triumph. And you know, emotion is part of that indomitable spirit."
Spock contemplates the doctor's words. "It seems that when people have the most reason to hate, is when they give most of themselves. Viktor has demonstrated this principle."
"Exactly!" McCoy struggles to keep his voice down. "Viktor clearly felt something towards us – his brethren – to perform such a selfless act. Emotion is the catalyst here, not the enemy."
Brethren. Spock feels connected to the word. He feels connected to these people. He was raised on Vulcan and has striven to act fully Vulcan throughout his upbringing. But in this moment, he feels more human than he ever has in his life. Yes, he would admit – but only to himself – that he is feeling something in this confined, sooty corner of anguish. He is feeling a connection to the human race that Vulcans never built with one another. The Vulcan race, too, has a violent past, but it is not the same; Vulcans live differently.
Violence has driven Vulcans into themselves, closed off from excitability. Spock thinks of the Enterprise crew, of Dr. McCoy and Jim. Humans have formed close bonds with one another despite their violent past. The complexities of human behavior have always fascinated Spock, and now he is close to understanding.
He thinks of Amanda Grayson, his mother. This is her history. Perhaps she is not a descendant of one of the inmates, but he will never know. She could be; he could be. For all he knows, she could be a descendant of one of the people inflicting pain, but he ignores that possibility. He has never studied his human ancestry; only that of Sarek. He knows he is descended from a distant cousin of Surak, something he was once proud of until his father chided him because pride is illogical.
"We need to rest, Doctor. I will wake you in three Earth hours." Spock turns towards the wall. A single tear glides down his face, splashing on the ground. The dust will remember what Spock has learned here.
McCoy knows that Spock is right. Every bone in his body aches of a hollow infection. He closes his eyes, but not before glancing at the Vulcan's back. Dark green bruises ooze down his spine.
McCoy and Spock awake at their agreed time. They are careful not to be followed, and tiptoe towards Kirk's building. They see multiple figures in the distance. McCoy thinks it must be the crew and moves towards them, but Spock pulls him back around a corner. They watch in the shadows as a group of women is led into a building. They are far away, but there is no mistaking one of them: it is Lieutenant Uhura.
"McCoy!" a voice calls behind them. They whip around. Perhaps they are caught and will be sentenced to death. But alas, out of the shadows comes a familiar face, "Where are you going?" he whispers. It is Viktor.
"You shouldn't have followed us!" McCoy scolds.
"I had to…see my sister," he points towards the line of women. "There she is! My Zofia, my baby sister…they do it when we are all asleep." He sank to the ground. Spock and McCoy kneeled with him as he controlled his sobs. The three remained in a huddle for a long, long time.
The red and blue clouds of gas slowly separate. Over the communications system, the Bridge crew of the Enterprise hears them speak once more.
"Now, do you see why the Earth must be annihilated?" the squeaky voice says.
"One instance not enough proof! The question is: what are the humans doing now?" the deep voice sounds angry now.
Captain Kirk looks around the Bridge. Did they all just experience what he did? Everyone is breathless and they all lock eyes. Yes, they have; they have all undergone the horror together.
"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. I can tell you the current condition of the human race, since I am a member. We are exploring the farthest reaches of the galaxy. We are innovating and building for the benefit of our race. We are now a people of peace. Our past was ugly, but it will never be that way again."
Spock makes an appeal next. "First Officer Spock speaking. I can guarantee Captain Kirk's sincerity. It would be unwise to destroy the Earth, or to destroy any civilization."
The helium beings become perfectly still. Then, their "bodies" begin rapidly jiggling, almost as if they are laughing.
The deep voice is laughing! "We were so caught up in our argument that we did not see you there!"
His partner adds, "Your vessel is very near to us, which means you must have lived through our thoughts. You see, that is the nature of our composition."
Suddenly it is clear to Kirk and the crew what has happened. "You can say that again," says Bones.
"But do we have the power to destroy the Earth? No! We are debaters. This is how we spend our days: arguing!" A bottomless laugh penetrates the walls of the Enterprise.
"But why did you stop our ship?" Scotty asks, ever-focused on his pride and joy: the Enterprise.
"We did not do so intentionally, the intensity of our argument must have emitted strong energy waves, stronger than those of your ship's propulsion," murmurs the meeker being. "We will now move out of your way. Thank you for your comments about the human race, Captain Kirk, First Officer."
The crew watches in awe as the dancing colors drift out of sight.
Spock has been listening intently to the voices. This encounter with organic nebulas is fascinating, to say the least. Living inside the thoughts of others, arguing helium life forms; it could drive him to hole himself in his quarters and study for hours. But for once Spock's mind is not consumed with science. He glances at Doctor McCoy, who nods knowingly in Spock's direction. They share a bond now, a bond unbreakable as those forged in the darkest of places, all those years ago on ancient Earth.
THE END